


a spoonful out of the axillar

by cimabue



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, but it was way back in the past, talkin about wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 09:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14257593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cimabue/pseuds/cimabue
Summary: It took a long time before Warren let anyone touch his wings, for personal reasons.





	a spoonful out of the axillar

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this back in august when i re-saw a clip from one of the x-movies where little warren tries to scrape off his growing wings with, uh, literally a lemon zester, and i couldn't get the sound out of my head for, like, days. this isn't nearly that graphic and not written with the movies in mind at all, but that's where the idea came from! any references to self-harm are referring to that, nothing else.

It took a while to get to this point.

Warren didn't like his wings being touched and hasn't, really - back when they had first started the whole mess, and even just a few weeks ago. If Bobby’s hands drifted too close, Warren jerked away.

He at least apologizes, now. Before, Bobby would get snapped at.

“Are they sensitive?” he’d asked.

“No. Or, well… not really, but it's- don't touch them. Don't touch them.”

“Okay,” and he'd agreed.

But now things feel a little different. A few weeks ago, _don't touch them_ turned into _it's not- it's just a personal thing_ , and now he’s laying on his back with Warren on his chest and Warren’s wings expanded and draped over him and the whole bed, and, suddenly, Warren says, “You can.”

Bobby glances down at him, but doesn't stop his hand brushing through the thick curls on Warren’s head.

“Can what?”

“You can touch them. My wings. You can.”

He stops. “What do you mean?”

“I've never let anyone. I want you to.”

“This is… sudden, Warren. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he says, quiet.

“So, like… now?”

“Um,” he says, “no, not now. Soon, though. Or just. Whenever. You have my permission.”

So Bobby resumes touching his hair.

“Okay,” he says, voice calm, but his heart is racing.

\--

“Can you help me?” Warren asks, looking over his shoulder, holding a strap of his harness.

“Sure,” Bobby says, and gets up from where he’s sitting on the bed.

It’s hard to figure out. It always has been, for Warren and for everyone else.

“Can you- the left one - can you lift it so it’s under the strap?”

“Sure,” Bobby repeats, and his mouth is dry, and what is he, twelve?

The feathers are soft in his hand. Downy, unlike he was really expecting. He guesses they're stiffer in further, but he's not willing to check that out right now, and Warren has stiffened enough that he knows this is still volatile territory.

He gets the strap over. He moves his hand away.

“Thank you,” Warren says, and flexes the wings against the brace, rolls out his shoulders.

His voice sounds shaky.

\--

They're almost asleep one night, skin still sweaty under the covers, and Warren sighs, deeply.

Bobby glances at the back of his head.

“I know you don't like it when I bring it up,” he says, and takes a breath, “but I never let anyone else touch them before, either. None of my exes.”

Bobby sighs, but rests his forehead on Warren’s shoulder all the same. From here, he can make out the jagged skin and white lines. Sections of skin gone like it was taken out with a teaspoon. The scar tissue blocking feathers from growing in some places on the axillars.

Things he noticed years ago but never felt in the right position to ask about.

He sighs.

“They probably didn’t take it personally either, Warren. I don’t.”

“Yeah,” he says, “I guess you might be right.”

\--

“Do they hurt?” Bobby asks, and Warren nods.

“Yeah, sore. I had to use them for a lot longer than I'm used to without breaks.”

“You want me to rub your shoulders?”

“That would be nice.”

So Bobby sits closer to him and does.

He tries to stay away from them, at first, for mostly reasons that relate to the soreness, but also have to do with the fact that he knows he won't be able to not ask once his hands ghost over them.

“You can-” Warren starts, looking over his shoulder, “can you rub the bases?”

“Yeah,” he says, and moves his thumbs down farther, more inward, and he swallows.

They're quiet, but they both know.

Bobby makes it a record three minutes without saying anything.

When he does, it's, “Jesus, Warren,” quietly and sad.

Warren tenses.

“I'm sorry,” Bobby says. “I'm sorry for even mention-”

“I did them,” Warren cuts in.

“What?”

“I did that. I made those. The gashes and… whatever else. That's what you wanted to know, right? What happened.”

Bobby’s hands drift.

“I didn't mean to-” he says, and his thumb drops into a dent on Warren’s back.

“Paring knife,” he says.

Bobby’s quiet again. He pauses, then traces jagged skin near the bases.

“Pliers.”

Warren shivers when it leaves his mouth. Phantom pain.

“Oh, baby.”

“I was scared,” Warren says, and his throat sounds constricted. “I was really scared.”

“Warren?” he asks.

“Yeah?”

“Cry.”

So he does.

Warren cries harder than he has in a long time, almost immediately, almost lurches forward. Bobby rubs his back.

“I wanted them gone,” Warren says, but through many, many tears and hiccups, “but I didn't know how to do it. I didn't know how, Bobby. I didn't know.”

Bobby shushes him, softly, quietly.

“And I didn't- I didn't want them, and I didn't like anyone touching them, because they're- they-” and he trails off.

“You don't have to explain anything to me if you don’t want to, Warren.”

The crying stops, after a while. Warren looks and feels like he's reliving the experience of being a scared boy. Alone. Confused.

Bobby hugs him, tightly.

The kisses come later.

“Thank you,” Bobby says, “for… for letting me, Warren. Be here. Hold you.”

Warren coughs once, wetly, into Bobby’s shoulder.

“That was a good answer,” Bobby says.

Warren smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u!


End file.
